


songs we wrote when we lived in the shadow of the moon

by windflicker



Category: Persona 3
Genre: M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 10:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windflicker/pseuds/windflicker
Summary: Minato and Ryoji listen to music together.





	songs we wrote when we lived in the shadow of the moon

It was like your feet falling into step as you walked, like closing one eye when you closed the other. “Here you go,” Ryoji said, holding out his other headphone.

Minato took it and looped it around his ear. The two of them were sitting on the couch, at the juncture between afternoon and evening when the air started to pool into something thicker, stilling. They had the entire length of the couch they were sitting on, but Ryoji was curled up next to him, his long legs drawn up and to the side. 

The wires tangled between them, pulling them together, and Ryoji scooted closer. Or maybe it was only another reason for them to sit closer, for Ryoji to rest his shoulder comfortably against Minato’s own, and for Minato to lean his head toward him. It seemed like there were always reasons, when it came to Ryoji.

Most of the time they listened to Minato’s music, but that was because Minato was always listening to music anyway, and Ryoji slipped his way in to the routine like he did to the rest of Minato’s life, seamless. But sometimes Ryoji took it upon himself to share his collection, too.

He pressed play now, and cheery, synthy chords blared through the right headphone, the standard four-chord pop guitar riff carrying on before a girl’s voice joined in in a breathy soprano. Ryoji always listened to his music at a mouse’s volume. “It’s just because you’re always blasting yours,” he had insisted when Minato mentioned it. “You’ll hurt your ears like that someday, and then how are we going to talk?”

They would have found a way to talk anyway, Minato knew, and Ryoji knew it too. Ryoji just liked to tease sometimes. Already sometimes now, they could talk without talking, which was kind of new, but just fine by Minato. 

The girl sang, and in the corner of his mind Minato recognized it as Avril Lavigne, or Hilary Duff, or someone he might hear on the radio at the supermarket or the mall. He snorted. 

“Your taste in music is terrible,” he said, but he couldn’t help the tug at the corner of his mouth.

Ryoji kept his eyes forward, but his lips curled in a smile, like Minato had complimented him. “Was that a smile?”

Minato rolled his eyes. How did he know? Ryoji wasn’t even looking at him. 

“It’s too cheerful.”

“It’s upbeat. I like it.”

“I don’t. It’s…meh.”

“You’re listening anyway,” Ryoji pointed out.

Minato sighed. What was he supposed to do, pull away? “It is so…you, though,” he admitted.

It was true. He would never have voluntarily listened to it on his own, but Ryoji’s music was so…sincere. The type that involved singer-songwriters crooning their feelings into the microphone, cradling a guitar or caressing the piano keys in front of them like a close friend. Releasing all off their happinesses, their sadnesses, their love and their tears as if people had a direct line in on their thoughts, as if they cared.

“You think so?” Ryoji asked, voice thoughtful.

Minato nodded.

“I like happy music,” Ryoji said, “and I like music by pretty girls.”

That won another snort from Minato. “You would.”

“So does that mean I’m pretty, then?”

It was so like Ryoji, Minato thought, to speak in an effortlessly innocent tone and make people question whether he was being utterly sincere or pulling someone’s leg. He rolled his eyes. 

“I guess so, yeah.” 

Ryoji looked happy, his eyes glowing a little, the way they did when he made Minato laugh. It made him feel warm. “You’re too kind, Minato. And besides,” he went on, in that airy, earnest way of his, “I like listening to the things people have to say. When they’re singing alone, they sing their hearts out, and I can hear exactly how they feel. How happy they are, or how they’re hurting, or how they’re longing for someone else.”

He sat back, and with the movement, the end of Ryoji’s scarf fluttered into Minato’s lap, so Minato reached out and touched the fabric with his fingers. “I guess so,” he said, wrapping it around his finger, soft and smooth as it looked. “I mean, from these songs, it seems like everyone—” 

“—is longing for someone?” Ryoji’s eyes sparkled. He reached out, and ran his fingers over his scarf too, until his hand brushed against Minato’s. Minato’s breath caught in his throat, but at the same time, the sensation felt natural, as natural as breathing. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they are.”

Ryoji’s thumb was rubbing circles on his knuckle, his skin warm against his own. Minato didn’t really care for touching people—it was unnecessary most of the time—but touching Ryoji never felt strange. It felt like something sliding into place, like slipping beneath his blanket at night or taking a sip of warm tea.

“I like your music, too,” Ryoji said after a moment, after it felt like the dark had dripped through all the cracks of the dorm and left them bathed in its velvety soup. “It seems dark at first, and full of turmoil. Like someone who’s going through a very troubled time.” He turned his wide blue eyes on Minato. “But through that intensity, it also expresses the will to live. Like you.”

Minato didn’t know about that, but when Ryoji said it, in his light, merry voice that somehow made everything sound both perfectly reasonable and profound, he could kind of feel like he agreed. Ryoji could say anything, all of his strange, wild, all-encompassing statements that felt like they wanted to reach forward and shake the earth, and they would tug at something in Minato’s chest as if it had been there all along. He hadn’t thought about it much before; music was nice because you didn’t have to use words to describe it. But now he could imagine the sound pounding through his veins, a tide pulled by the moon.

“I guess so. I just like it,” Minato said. “I just think it’s neat.”

Ryoji gave a happy hum of agreement. Then Minato heard a new sound, soft and carefree: Ryoji was humming under his breath. The song was almost over, and through his free ear Minato listened to the cadence of his voice, smooth and airy as the way he spoke, but there was a creakiness, too, when he reached for the lower notes, a quality that made him seem suddenly unbearably human. Something in his chest hurt ever so softly. 

He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Ryoji was smiling straight ahead, his eyes warm and wide and content. The ache in his chest grew. Ryoji was so youthful in some ways, eager to take everything in like he was new to this world, even though he was a high school second year in Minato’s class who listened to Avril Lavigne. But sometimes he seemed ages old, too. The way he stayed unruffled, the way nothing ever really got to him. It reminded Minato of the serene way that old men smiled as they meandered through the park, the way old ladies sometimes handed him pieces of candy and told him he looked sad. 

People thought Minato was like that, too, that nothing got to him. But it was different. It was different to shut your ears to the outside world, than it was to listen to it and smile so peacefully anyway.

Ryoji squeezed his hand playfully, breaking Minato out of his thoughts. “Sometimes it’s the happy music that hurts the most, you know,” he said when the song ended.

“Huh?”

“It hurts because it’s beautiful. Because you know it has to end,” he said. “Everything has to end, even the happiest moments.” 

“Yeah,” Minato said quietly, looking down. “I know.”

“But that’s why all of the most beautiful things have a hint of sadness to them, don’t you think?” Ryoji asked. He looked at Minato and smiled. “So it can’t really be helped.” 

 _Can it?_ Minato wanted to think it could. He had always tried, anyway. If you blocked out everything, if you never let it get to you in the first place, anything could be helped. 

He looked back at Ryoji, who was objectively beautiful, no matter who you asked: the girls in the class, Junpei, who liked hanging out with him, even Aigis, he was sure. But Ryoji always chose to spend time with Minato, over any of them, even the prettiest girls in school. He was looking at Minato as if he wanted nothing more than to hear what he would say, but also as if he already knew the answer. 

“Maybe they can’t,” Minato murmured. “But we just have to enjoy it while we can, don’t we.” Then he nudged Ryoji, because the MP3 player had gone silent, and gave his hand an impatient squeeze. Chuckling, Ryoji pressed play again. 

The next song opened with a sprinkling of chords, a soft drumbeat kicking in a few bars after. Minato was pretty sure he knew the name of this one. 

“It’s Katy Perry.”

“Minato, what are you talking about? This is Michelle Branch!”

He and Ryoji kept their hands linked together as it played, and gingerly, not bothering to hide his smile, he nodded his head along to the rhythm.

**Author's Note:**

> title from [synesthesia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oVvZR79k90) by andrew mcmahon. based off my self-indulgent headcanon that ryoji loves 2000s pop (aka the music of their time) and minato rolls his eyes but quietly bops along.
> 
> thanks very much for reading! find me on twitter @ justihce and tumblr @ faeriis for more \o/


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